Parenting on Pocket

A few years ago, when my husband came home from the store with a bottle of sunscreen for our toddler, I had a mild panic attack. Me: “Wait, you just bought it? Did you even look at the reviews? Husband: “Uh, no. But it says right here that it’s for kids. And it’s SPF 50, so ...

The reasons we shout at our children are many. From asking them (again) to get dressed to finding crayon scribbled all over the kitchen wall, there are all sorts of daily triggers in the life of a parent that warrant a raised voice.

In a memorable scene of Sara Zaske’s guide to German-style parenting, Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children, Zaske sends her 4-year-old daughter Sophia to her Berlin preschool with a bathing suit in her bag.

While I spend my professional time now as a career success coach, writer, and leadership trainer, I was a marriage and family therapist in my past, and worked for several years with couples, families, and children.

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Email careandfeeding@slate.com. I have two young kids for whom my husband and I rarely buy toys because we already have way too many.

I am the father of two boys, Griffin (13) and Huck (11). They are awesome: bright, curious, funny, and kindhearted. Like any parent, I would love to believe that my awesome kids are a result of my awesome parenting. Sadly, expert opinion indicates it ain't so. Genes have an enormous influence.

Back when I was six years old, the neighborhood I lived in provided the perfect backdrop for an active and idyllic childhood. Half a dozen other boys about my age lived on the same street I did and we quickly banded together to form a little neighborhood gang.

“I will not cut my hair. Never. The answer is never, Mom, and the answer will always be never, so you should just stop asking me.” He said it without attitude, in a matter-of-fact way, as though he were simply reporting on the weather or time of day.

Whether or not you have kids, you probably have an opinion on parenting. Should moms and dads enforce rules strictly, whether their kids like it or not? Or is it more important to let kids enjoy themselves, even if that means bending the rules sometimes?

Earlier this year, I wrote about teaching empathy, and whether you are a parent who does so. The idea behind it is from Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the graduate school of education, who runs the Making Caring Common project, aimed to help teach kids to be kind.

Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy that life’s most difficult questions have one right answer. By Human beings are born too soon.

The day it happened was no different from most; I was worried, and I was running late. I was worried because in a few hours’ time I was going to be enduring a two-and-a-half hour flight with my kids, ages 1 and 4.

When it comes to folk wisdom on how to raise happy and successful kids, we all do the same thing. We look at the families around us and try to identify what's working, and what's not. Then we attempt to copy the good and avoid the bad.

What parent doesn't want their child to do well in school, stay out of trouble, and grow up to be a highly successful adult? But as I've found over the years raising my own daughter, that's far easier said than done.

What does it take to be a good parent? We know some of the tricks for teaching kids to become high achievers. For example, research suggests that when parents praise effort rather than ability, children develop a stronger work ethic and become more motivated.

In a piece in The Conversation, Bernadette Saunders described positive discipline. Parents who practise positive discipline or gentle parenting use neither rewards nor punishments to encourage their children to behave.

Relationships are hard. Parenting is hard. Combine those two and you’re in for some bumps in the road large enough to rival those rutted rainforest paths that break your axle and pop your tires. No two people can agree on everything.

PARIS — I recently spent the afternoon with some Norwegians who are making a documentary about French child-rearing. Why would people in one of the world’s most successful countries care how anyone else raises kids?

About 25 years ago, when the era of irrational exuberance allowed enough disposable income for irrational anxiety, the concept of “helicopter parenting” arose. A “helicopter parent” micromanages every aspect of his child’s routine and behavior.

But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands. Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting. I see a lot of parents (mothers mostly) in public places desperately trying to explain their dissatisfaction to their misbehaving children.

New parenthood is a desperate search for certainty: When you start knowing nothing, you are desperate to know something. And when you finally figure that something out—how to get this creature to eat or sleep—that becomes the answer.

There are two great defining features of child-rearing today. First, children are now praised to an unprecedented degree. As Dorothy Parker once joked, American children aren’t raised; they are incited. They are given food, shelter and applause. That’s a thousand times more true today.

In her new book, The Gardener and the Carpenter, Alison Gopnik offers up a more organic approach to raising children. Could a 4-year-old possess better instincts for scientific discovery than a college student?

What parent hasn't lost their temper when a kid misbehaves? Of course a parent who hasn't lost their cool from time to time is a rarer than a unicorn, but losing your temper and yelling can be ineffective parenting. It's better for everyone if you keep your cool.

It’s the increasingly fashionable approach, with an emphasis on baby-wearing, co-sleeping and long-term breastfeeding. But does it make for happier, better children? In a family home in picture-pretty Oxfordshire, four women and seven toddlers are, respectively, drinking tea and causing chaos.

If permission to stop parenting sounds like the solution to surviving the rest of the summer holidays, then Alison Gopnik is your saviour. The US psychology professor and grandmother of three thinks too much “parenting” risks ruining your relationship with your children.

It wasn’t until I moved to the Netherlands with my 3-year-old that I learned why Dutch children are the happiest Parenting as an expat in the Netherlands means surrounding your own children with some of the most confident, self-possessed and happy children in the world.

X marks the spot! This Dad devised a genius plan that could save your teen from a dangerous situation. As a parent, we never stop worrying about our children. The day they’re born we count all 10 fingers and all 10 toes, and then we count them over again.

Even armed with a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, I remember the frightening first moments after bringing my newborn daughter home from the hospital. I wasn’t sure what to do–and not at all confident that I was capable of being the parent she needed me to be.

ALONG with its Nordic neighbours, Sweden features near the top of most gender-equality rankings. The World Economic Forum rates it as having one of the narrowest gender gaps in the world. But Sweden is not only a good place to be a woman: it also appears to be an idyll for new dads.

Parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world. There are so many things that can affect a child's success, including socioeconomic status, the environment they live in, and their parents’ education level.

In this series on overprotective parents, we’ve taken a nuanced look at the phenomenon’s origins, explored the question of whether the world is a more dangerous place now than it was several decades ago (it’s not), and delved into the risks that arise when we don’t allow children to do ri

I know many people want to stay current with the latest parenting trends -- attachment parenting, minimalist parenting, Tiger Mother parenting, et al. Well, I've stumbled upon a new technique that will guarantee your child grows up to be an exemplary student and citizen.

Helicopter parents have been hovering for decades now. And since the first rotors started whirring, parenting coach Vicki Hoefle has been explaining why it’s harmful. There are apparently better ways to raise resilient, independent human beings who will successfully move out of your house.

The moment your new baby comes into your arms, a whole new set of emotions rushes in—pride, joy, wonderment, fear, and, yes, guilt. Because everything you do or don't do as a guardian of this child is all your fault forevermore. That's what it feels like anyway, sometimes, as a parent.

Ever tried to control your reaction when you were really, really mad? Having good intentions is one thing—reality is quite another. You can think all you want that the next time your kids provoke you, you will not react angrily no matter how mad you are.

In the United States, at least 9 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5 percent. How has the epidemic of ADHD—firmly established in the U.S.

Raising children is a lot of work, so who can blame parents that look for tips and tricks to make it all a little easier? Sadly, not all life hacks are as useful as they seem. Here’s what happens when 25 of the most popular parenting hacks are attempted.

When kids want something, they'll ask..and ask...and ask until you cave in. You can teach them to unlearn this annoying negotiation tactic by saying just three words: "Asked and Answered." The concept is simple.

Parenting: possibly the toughest job in the world with no right way to do it. Nevertheless, through years of making babies we, as a society, have figured out a few tips and tricks. Here are our 10 best parenting hacks.

That every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and that it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra. That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children.

My five-year-old is extravagantly furious at being thwarted. I have infringed her human rights by mildly suggesting that she turn off the television and put some clothes on. To which I reply, swift as Lady Macbeth’s dagger, “I never was your friend in the first place, darling.

Early one morning when my daughter Rosie was a few weeks old, I packed her up in a baby carrier and took her to the drugstore, which felt at the time like an ambitious outing. It had been a rough night, and she was now happily sleeping off her bender.

The boys in the YouTube videos always land their bottles perfectly upright. Max Cole has spent hours studying their routine, and now, his own viewers are waiting: Empty half the blue juice. Hold the Powerade bottle by its cap. Flip it into the air and– Max, who is 6, waves his arms.

In the last installment of this series on the causes and effects of the modern trend towards overprotective parenting, we explored the evidence behind the biggest reason parents give for adopting this approach and abandoning the more “free range” method they were reared with themselves: that

Helicopter parents are in the news a lot these days. These are the parents who can't stop hovering around their kids. They practically wrap them in bubble wrap, creating a cohort of young adults who struggle to function in their jobs and in their lives.

‘I think my child has been breastfed by another woman,” my friend Jennifer announces out of the blue in the middle of our kids’ play-date. Even for California, where we live, this is mind-bogglingly weird. For a start, Jennifer’s daughter Alice is two and a half.

Looking for advice on parenting but don’t want to wade through reams of studies? A new book offers help. In “What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive,” Erica Reischer offers practical tips in an easy-to-read format.

My middle son tested all my parenting abilities, and they were found wanting. Ante-natal classes aren’t stigmatised, so why should parenting classes? My middle son tested all my parenting abilities, and they were found wanting.

An unhealthy dose of the work ethic is threatening to wreck childhood. Under a tyrannical work-obsessed government, years that should be devoted to play and joyful learning are being stifled by targets and tests.

Being a parent is an experience as old as the human race. Being a parent in a plugged-in world of intensifying work-life pressures, increasing economic and political uncertainty, and endless "mommy wars"? That's a whole different story.

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work. By the time a poor child is 1 year old, she has most likely already fallen behind middle-class children in her ability to talk, understand and learn.

One culture focuses on 'raising' kids, the other on protecting them. The video depicts the freedom given by European parents to their kids — letting them play outside unattended, riding their bikes to school, leaving babies outside to sleep, even on city streets.

Every parent asks it at some point: What is going on in my kid's brain? And if you don't understand kids it can be hard to give them what they need to thrive. Lately the trend has been helicopter parenting and trying to get them ready as soon as possible for an increasingly competitive world.

Ross Greene wants to make life easier. In his most recent book, "Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with Your Child," Greene outlines a three-step process parents can take to exert that influence in the most productive way possible.

On female ambition and what gets thrown out. Around halfway through writing my novel, I read a book that nearly derailed me. As any writer knows, reading while writing is always a risky pursuit. Cadences are easily stolen; we find ourselves singing a lullaby we don’t remember being sung to us.

When the cameras start rolling Thursday night at Barclays Center, scene of the National Basketball Association draft, one of the biggest stories won’t be a player, but a parent: LaVar Ball, father of the U.C.L.A. phenom Lonzo Ball, who is projected to be among the top five picks.

When the middle-schoolers on the Netflix show “Stranger Things” ride their bikes through the woods around their small town, it’s a clear nod to “E.T.” But those scenes are also reminders of something else: unsupervised childhood.

Nature Valley Canada recently sat down three generations of families and asked them one simple question, “What did you like to do for fun as a kid?” Take a moment to see how they responded, then grab your kids and go rediscover the joy of nature. [NatureValleyCanada] [H/T:Adweek / Mashable]

Children have never been perfect at listening to their parents, but they have never failed to imitate them. When you ask parents what they want for their children, what are the most common replies? They want their children to be smart and happy, of course.

I know many people want to stay current with the latest parenting trends—attachment parenting, minimalist parenting, Tiger Mother parenting, et al. Well, I’ve stumbled upon a new technique that will guarantee your child grows up to be an exemplary student and citizen.